NBA Live, where hast thou greatness gone?

NBA Live 07 was not a complete disaster like NBA Live 06 was, in fact you could actually recognize individual aspects of the game of basketball within. EA Sports' fabled franchise has a lot of making up to do with basketball fans due to the emergence of 2K Sports' NBA 2K franchise. The once invincible Live franchise is now playing second fiddle to another NBA game.

How did NBA Live get to this point? Where exactly did things go wrong? How can things be fixed? That's the problem facing the grunts with the keyboards and the suits in their offices at Electronic Arts these days.

The simple fact is, Live was a victim of its own success. Much like how the Madden series has gone downhill when competition was at an all-time low, so did the Live series. EA Sports found themselves not being aggressive enough to take on a direct competitor, and now they are paying the price.

So how does NBA Live pull the consumer back in and regain its status atop the basketball gaming world? In this writer's opinion it all begins with making the game better.

First off, let me preface the rest of this article with another opinion: I believe we here at DigitalSportsMania rightfully gave NBA Live 08 a 6.0 rating because the game is nowhere near where it needs to be. There are broken aspects to be found across the board, therefore I believe the rating was highly justified with that in mind.

So what needs fixing? Well to me the Dynasty Mode compels you NOT to play more than what you should play. EA Sports needs to improve the Dynasty Mode of this game to improve the longevity of the game -- assuming one finds any redeeming aspects in the gameplay. Beef up the draft, make players more real and make them more interactive. You are dealing with a small roster in the NBA, coaches generally know their players a bit better, why not reflect that? Adding international leagues and international competitions would be another huge step-up. This is just scratching the surface here folks.

Balancing the gameplay is another aspect that needs to be tuned. Tuning the gameplay period is what really needs to be done. Developers sometimes get in a groove of making gameplay more complex than it should be by adding multiple modes and features when they should focus on the basics first. By ensuring the game plays like the game it emulates before adding window dressing would be a huge upgrade. Why not forget about adding "Quick-Strike" to NBA Live and instead make sure the post play is spot on first?

In my opinion if EA Sports could focus on two things for next year -- Dynasty Mode and gameplay -- they would see not only the quality of the game go up they would also see the number of sales begin to increase. Give people a good playing basketball game and they will flock to it -- that approach worked for their competitors after all.